This invention relates to an optical device to be used for amusement purposes, and more particularly to an optical toy gun in which it appears as though light energy travels through a scope located on the gun outwardly toward an object viewed through the scope.
It has long been known that an article can be positioned between a pair of spaced apart parallel mirrors and illuminated in such a manner that a multiplicity of reflections of the article will appear to an observer; i.e., observer will see an infinite number of images of the article instead of only one article. See, for example, Yearta, U.S. Pat. No. 2,286,247; Harris, 2,483,901. Such devices have been used primarily for the display of merchandise.
A variety of toy guns have been developed using photographic means or other optical special effects. For example, Golden, U.S. Pat. No. 3,218,745 discloses a photographic toy gun having a transparency viewer and a mechanism for moving an endless film strip across the viewer to provide a target image for shooting by the user. Ryan, U.S. Pat. No. 3,397,484 discloses a toy gun having a telescopic sight with a transparent mirror set in the line of sight, and a mechanism for reflecting images from a V-shaped mirror onto the transparent mirror to simulate the firing of ray guns or shell firing weapons. However, none of the presently available toy guns have utilized a pair of parallely spaced apart mirrors to create the appearance of an endless succession of light flashes converging along the line of sight and appearing to be superimposed on a remote object seen through the device.